European Travelog D2E2: Walking in Paris
- Thomas Jefferson
Paris is a city that easy on the eyes and the feet with most of the city being flat and no slopes or stairs to challenge you at the end of the day. However, we did a LOT of walking - my Fitbit regularly clocking over 20,000 steps daily with a peak of 34,000 steps.
The city is divided into twenty arrondissements and the River Seine dividing the city into the Left Bank, to the south of the river and the Right Bank to the north of the river.
My first impression of Paris was that it was like walking through a never-ending movie set - the boulevards, the buildings, the balconies all looking like it came from the mind of an art director who wanted to make sure that the viewers saw a consistent background throughout the movie.
Reading about the history of Paris's urban architecture, I found that it was completely redesigned by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, between 1853 and 1870 on the orders of Napoleon III, and the work continued until 1927, long after his dismissal.
Before the re-architecture of Paris, there were many complaints about the city. Voltaire complained about the markets "established in narrow streets, showing off their filthiness, spreading infection and causing continuing disorders." Another social reformer wrote, "Paris is an immense workshop of putrefaction, where misery, pestilence and sickness work in concert, where sunlight and air rarely penetrate. Paris is a terrible place where plants shrivel and perish, and where, of seven small infants, four die during the course of the year."
Haussmann oversaw the demolition of medieval neighborhoods that were deemed overcrowded and unhealthy, the building of wide avenues, new parks and squares, and the construction of new sewers, fountains and aqueducts.
So now the city is a mix of 19th century urban planning practices, medieval churches and contemporary commercial establishments and a superb transit network which makes traversing the city very easy even for visitors.
We cross the imposing facade of the Institut de France. Originally constructed as a school in 1661, it became the Institut de France in 1795.
There's the occasional garden with it's ancient trees which have seen the evolution of the city, its monarchs, the revolution, the wars and the fashions.
We stop at a cafe for a quick pick-me-up and a sugar rush.
Some of the streets are so narrow that two vehicles cannot pass side by side, and the urban art that adorns the walls probably has an interesting tale to tell about the artist and the environment they come from.
Glass windows on a brightly lit up chocolate shop try to attract passers-by like moths to a lantern.
Cafes have lined up their tables on the sidewalks, awaiting people who come in for brunch and tourists tired after a morning of shopping or museum-hopping.
On the other side of the street, the brown waters of the Seine make their winding way towards the English Channel and we can see the cathedral of Notre Dame across it.
The skies are starting to clear up after the morning drizzle.
and people throng around the Tuileries Gardens.
There's the passer-by expressing his sentiment to the world in multiple languages.
In search of the latest fashions from what is probably the fashion capital of the Western hemisphere, people are lined up in front of the Loius Vuitton flagship store on Champs-Élysées, waiting for the gatekeepers to give them permission to enter the portal.
It's the same scene at the Dior store, a couple of building down on Champs-Élysées.
A little further down, we run into some old-fashioned policing - two of Paris's finest on horseback, patrolling the area near the Arc de Triomphe as their predecessors might have done a couple of centuries ago.
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As the day winds down, the city gets quieter
We have a glimpse of the iconic pyramid in the front of the Louvre.
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After a refreshing bowl of fresh fruit and granola, at the end of a long day of walking, it's good to remove your shoes, put up your feet, and watch the world hurry past. |
- Get good comfortable walking shoes that you've broken in - not the ones you bought the day before the trip.
- Have a good pair of sun-glasses and a water bottle.
- Be careful about your belongings: Pickpocketing in India was a major problem towards the end of the 20th century, but nowadays, nobody even worries about getting pickpocketed in a major Indian city. On the other hand this seems to be par for the course in large European cities like Paris and Rome. Almost every YouTube video about these European cities has a section or even complete videos dedicated to how to avoid becoming a victim. Our approach to save ourselves was to leave all documents we did not need in the hotel safe and walk around only with an ID card, copy of our passport, a credit card and a few Euros in a fanny pack around our waist and covered by the shirt.
Comments
Like the picture of the guy with the cool shirt !